Can anyone help

[Deano1234]

Hi I am new here and have just got my first scroll saw.
My grandad was giving a scroll saw for me and I can't seem to get it working. The blade moved up and down but it will not cut wood I don't know if I am doing some think wrong and help would be grateful thanks

 

[Hornbeam]

Very quick check.
Is the blade the right way round, ie teeth facing forward and the right way up ie cuts on the down stroke

Ian

 

[Silversam]

As he said above and also you have to tension the blade. Should be some kind of knob to turn on the machine to adjust the tension. That takes practise getting the tension right.

Don’t try to cut thick wood. Cut slowly too. It’s not a bandsaw that cuts wood quick and easy.

What make is the scrollsaw.

When I first got mine I downloaded a manual for it to read through it so that I understood the machine better. I also watched loads of vids on utube and learnt a lot by watching others use a scrollsaw.

I also read loads of post on these forums and again I gained knowledge about what to do and what not to do.

Hope you get it sorted. You will have lots of fun with it.
As a afterthought can’t your grandad show you the basics. That would be a great help.

 

[Deano1234]

Its a dremel moto shop 576 and my grandad changed the blade both ways and it still will not cut wood I have taken a pic and a video of it but for some reason it will not let me put it on. The blade just rubs on the wood and will not do any more

 

[finneyb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnUzVETlSbQ shows it working and what sort of cutting speed you get - does yours sound like that?
I'd try it with thin soft wood 6mm max and see what you get.

 

[AES]

I had one of those once. It was not too bad, and with a blade in the right way round (teeth facing downwards, and facing towards you as you stand/sit in front of the machine) it should definitely cut. If NOT:

There is NO tension adjustment on that machine. The tension comes from inside the "arm" which is in fact 2 "halves"of press-fabricated sheet metal screwed together along the vertical axis. If you're quite sure that there is little or no blade tension then the answer is to remove the table, then unbolt the arm assembly from the machine, split it along the vertical line, then look inside. The big spring (maybe 2, I forget) up at the back of the arm near the On/off switch is either broken, badly stretched, or has come off either it's upper or lower retaining hook.

It is BTW a pretty crude machine by today's standards, but stripping it as above is not difficult, just very fiddly - you may learn a couple of new words! But fix (or replace) that spring/s if it's/they is/are broken/missing and it definitely WILL cut wood (and thin sheet metal with the fine blades).

BTW, if you look at that Youtube video linked in the post above, the bloke there says, quite correctly, that you can ONLY use Dremel's own scroll saw blades - not only are they pinned (not pinless) but they are MUCH shorter than any other scroll saw blade I've ever seen - as the bloke says, less than 3 inches (75 mm) long. If I remember correctly those Dremel blades come only in Coarse, Medium, and Fine cuts, no big ranges of TPIs like "proper" scroll saw blades. I MAYBE even have a couple of old Dremel blades kicking around somewhere.

But OTOH, though crude, somewhat clumsy, and lacking in just about all "modern" scroller's refinements it WILL cut wood (and thin metal). I used mine (mainly for cutting ply bits for model aeroplanes) and it lasted me years and years. In fact after scrapping the whole machine - the table is really horrible - I still have the rugged little motor saved from the machine in my "may come in handy one day" box.

HTH. Best of luck with it.

 

[AES]

A P.S. to the above: To save yourself the possibly unnecessary job of stripping down the arm of your Dremel, go look at the Youtube video someone linked to above.

Note where the bloke is fitting a blade by pressing down on the little "silvery tab" right at the front of the arm (that's the upper blade holder). When you press that downwards (I used to use my thumb) do you need quite a lot of pressure to get it to go down until you can insert the blade pins in the little slot? If YES (and I do mean quite a lot of pressure to push down) then the spring/s at the back of the arm is/are OK, and lack of tension is NOT your problem. If that tab pushes down pretty easily (almost no resistance) then your problem is broken, undone, or far too weak spring/s.

As said, this is an old Dremel machine and I'm not sure if spares for it are still around, but if spring/s is your problem you should be able to sources suitable replacement spring/s from the sort of mixed spring packs you often see in DIY Emporia - it is of course extension spring/s (not compression) that you'll need.

Re the special blades, I GUESS they are still available. During a quick visit to my local DIY place recently I happened to notice a new model Dremel scroll saw. Also looked "not quite the thing" for "proper" scrolling but from a quick glance the blades looked the same as on my (and your) old Dremel.

BTW, Dremel do have their own web site - the usual 3 x double u's plus company name dot com. But I don't THINK they're anything like the same company as when your saw was made. Their European HQ is now somewhere in Holland I think. AFAIK they were wholly American when your saw was made.

HTH